Flemish mysticism · 1293–1381
Jan van Ruusbroec
The Admirable Doctor · Flemish mystic of rest
Jan van Ruusbroec served as a chaplain in Brussels before retiring with companions to a hermitage at Groenendaal in the Sonian Forest. There, often writing out of doors on a wax tablet, he composed in his own Brabant Dutch — so that ordinary people, not only scholars, could find the way.
His masterpiece, The Spiritual Espousals, unfolds from a single line: “See, the Bridegroom comes; go out to meet him.” He describes a Trinitarian rhythm at the heart of God — love flowing out, and drawing in to rest — into which the soul is swept.
His crowning idea is the “common life” (ghemeyne leven): the person perfected in God becomes “equally ready for contemplation or for action, and perfect in both.” Rest in God is not an escape, but the source of love poured back into the world.
Ruusbroec writing in the Groenendaal forest, 14th-century miniature (public domain)
Ways to pray
with Jan van Ruusbroec
